Breaking the Suun by J.A. Culican & Cassidy Taylor

Author:J.A. Culican & Cassidy Taylor [Culican, J.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dragon Realm Press
Published: 2019-06-18T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

We were safe, but only as long as we stayed in the air. On the ground, the horses were trailing us, screaming at us as they kicked up dirt and dust. It was like being followed by a storm, if storms had teeth. Stiarna flew beside us, and I was pretty sure she stayed visible just to taunt them. Her only wounds from the fight were some superficial scratches. For that, and for her safety, I was grateful.

As we circled this part of the island, it became clear the horses wouldn’t follow us into the trees that crept up the foothills. They seemed to keep to the confines of the field.

“What are we going to do?” I asked finally.

Arun peered over the ship’s edge, keeping his hands on the wheel. “I can’t land in the jungle.”

He looked worse after our encounter with the horses. His eyes were sunken into his face and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. The amulet around his neck was almost completely black now, and it pulsed slower than it seemed it should. Slower than a heart should beat, if that was, in fact, what it was keeping time with. He was changing, dying, and I didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t know how to save him, not without the Sisters of Light. And it was quickly becoming evident we wouldn’t find the Sisters of Light from up here.

“Well, we have to land somewhere,” I said.

Estrid looked at me like she wanted to make some smart remark about me giving orders, but she didn’t. Just another example of how she’d changed around me. Before she thought I was the Suun heir, she never would have held back.

Arun either didn’t notice the tension between me and my sister, or he ignored it. “There is something I could try. I could bring her down in the trees.”

Erik narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, ‘in the trees’?”

“In the branches,” Arun explained. “So that we’re not on the ground, and I don’t have to find a field large enough to hold the Duchess.”

“Have you done that before?” I asked. I had just gotten used to the idea of flying ships, and now he wanted to put one in a tree.

“No, but I’ve been thinking about it. See that tree over there?” He pointed, and we all followed his finger to one of the taller trees at the base of a nearby mountain. Its branches were thick and likely sturdy, and widespread, like arms pushing its neighbors away, creating a lot of space around it. Enough space for a ship.

“And we would what? Climb down?”

“Yes.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Estrid asked, always the one to look at all the possibilities. “What if the ship falls?”

Arun looked at me finally, as if I had been the one to ask the question. “Then we fall. And we’ll have no way out of the valley except to climb.”

“Have you seen a town or anywhere we can go in case

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